‘Fixed wings,’ she said, addressing the man but looking at Kamo. ‘Unless one wishes to travel by balloon, for which no wings are required. These air ships dock on the spires of the skyscrapers.’
‘Of course,’ Angel said. ‘Heavier-than-air machines.’
‘We dance,’ said Saskia, smiling. ‘We dance to music produced by machines.’
‘Automata?’ asked the man in the black hat.
‘And the automata are so indistinguishable from flesh-and-blood humans that men lust after them.’
‘What powers these automata?’
Saskia laughed. ‘They are electric, of course.’
‘Electric!’
As table laughed with her, the moment—all of them, with the exception of Kamo, laughing at the idea of electric automata—was clear to her with such brightness, such sharp meaning, that she lost the desire to talk any longer. She put a napkin to her mouth and coughed. The sound covered the fibrillation of her breath. The mask, likewise, hid her tears.
At sixteen minutes to midnight, Saskia and Kamo were waiting in the chamber between the dining room and great hall. An ivy arch had been installed near the tiled stove. Beneath it, a wooden bridge, painted silver, was intended to recall the grace of Venice. The entire scene had been created by a photographic company to produce souvenirs of the event. The camera and its tripod were, however, unattended, and there were no more than a dozen people in the room at a given moment. Saskia and Kamo moved behind the ivy arch, which partially concealed them.
‘That was stupid,’ said Kamo. He put his lips against her neck. Her skin shuddered as though his tongue was a settling mosquito. ‘There will be no further delay. We have fifteen minutes.’
‘Sixteen. By that time, most people will be outside to watch the midnight fireworks.’
‘How will we escape?’
‘Through the private apartment of the Empress Maria Fyodorovna. There is an iron staircase that will take us to the park at the rear of the palace.’
‘I don’t like waiting,’ he said. She could smell the acid on his breath. It made her think of the green flames. Kamo opened his doublet. Inside, an apple grenade hung from his belt.
She curtseyed a little, as though his lips had weakened her.
‘Where did you get that?’
Kamo drew his lips back. It was the smile that had always been prelude to murder. ‘Are you frightened for your delightful dinner companions, Lynx?’
‘They are people,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t abdicate your responsibility to forces behind your control. Don’t see them as already dead.’
As she kissed his ear, she noticed that Kamo had his weight on his right leg. The bomb, fist-sized, looked heavy. Saskia had clocked Kamo’s reaction to a visual stimulus at 280 milliseconds. Unusually fast. Given the amount of wine he had drunk, his weight, and his age, she estimated his blood alcohol to be one tenth of a percent. Its relaxing effect would improve his simple reaction time but impair his judgement.
She withdrew her hand from the warmer. She made a fist to help flex her biceps.
‘He gave it to me.’
Saskia tried to swallow, but could not. She felt the room darken.
‘Are you saying that he is here?’
‘You’re scared.’
She was. Saskia struck Kamo’s heart with a sharp, penetrating blow that almost tore her biceps. He coughed and fell against the wall. His mask remained jolly but his mouth was downturned. She looked hard at his throat, slowed her vision, and saw the subtle, blooming redness of his pulse. It was weak and irregular. His mouth opened, gulping silently. His lips became cyanotic as his heart misfired. The strike had been placed well.
Saskia looked around the ivy arch. Nobody had noticed her attack. She reached inside his doublet and removed the apple grenade. There was no obvious method of disposal. She could not think of a place—laundry chute, punch bowl, stove—where any noble or servant would be safe.
She put it into the fabric bag at the base of her back and buttoned it with an expert pinch of her fingers.
The eyes behind Kamo’s mask were bloody. Saskia put her lips upon his in a passionate, open kiss; turned his head away from the hall; reached up and pinched his nostrils closed. He had barely the strength to lift his arms. Saskia could hold her breath for six minutes. Kamo would not manage thirty seconds. She stared into his huge, blurred eye, and saw the wadded skin of his cheek shake. She could bring him the gift he had given so many others.
The room flashed white.
Saskia withdrew her mouth. A gossamer of spit strung between their mouths for a moment, then was gone. A couple, their arms linked, were standing beneath the arch and looking at Kamo, who had leaned backwards, as though he were trying to brace the wall. The bluish cast to his lips was purpling, returning to red.
Saskia stepped from behind the arch and apologised to the couple. The gentleman asked her, curtly, if she was a feature of the background. Saskia smiled. She slipped from the room with a last nod to the photographer, who was still holding his L-shaped flash-lamp aloft. She walked with studied confidence. In all the mirrors, all the polished surfaces, and the half-bright crowds in the windows, she looked for the man towards whom the compass of Kamo’s mind pointed, like a false north: the poet Soselo.
Chapter Twenty-One
The size of the Grand Ballroom was emphasised by gilded mirrors between its double tier of windows. Saskia judged physical spaces in terms of their capacity for exploitation: attack, distraction, concealment. As she stepped onto the parquet floor, she understood that it would take more than eight seconds to sprint its length, though on this evening it was crammed with guests. Only six of the dozen chandeliers had been burned. The great windows to the west looked across the torchlit palace square, while those to the east had a view of the gardens. It felt as airy as a quadrangle despite the thunderous scenes painted on the ceiling. Soon, midnight would pass through this room. An orchestra played a rich, soaring piece. Saskia had entered the ballroom at the finale to a quadrille. The guests froze, then bowed as the music completed. There was a sizeable audience about the periphery and their applause echoed. A man wearing a blue fountain of peacock feathers—the nominated dance master—approached the conductor and made a circular motion with his hand: keep going.
In the moment before the music returned, Saskia looked round. She saw Kamo stagger into the room. His appearance drew smiles and shakes of the head. He seemed the worse for drink. Saskia look ahead, towards the main staircase, and saw the same greenish glow that had captured her attention upon entering the Summer Palace. Then a reveller passed through her sightline and the green shine, or whatever produced it, had disappeared.
A Strauss waltz commenced. At once, there was general movement towards the dance floor, like a flower closing. Tension had been released. Saskia felt bodies carry her forward. Ladies laughed and men laughed along with them. Couples formed and spun. The whirlpool carried Saskia anticlockwise. As ever, her height made her conspicuous, and her blackcurrant pelisse billowed as she turned, tracking Kamo.
‘May I?’ asked a man.
‘With pleasure.’
She danced, but kept her left wrist held within her warmer. This seemed to please her dance partner, and the two waltzed without touching. The man kept his hands behind his back. Saskia, in deference to his politeness, made sure that their synchrony was absolute. Nearby dancers saw them and, laughing, adopted their remote style. But the dancers could not match Saskia for her ability to anticipate.
‘The piece is ending,’ she said.
‘Where may I take you?’
‘The far end of the floor, towards the staircase.’